From Exposure to Creation: Cultivating Narrative Ownership to Reduce Stigma

Abstract

Stories are powerful agents of attitude change, including attitudes toward stigmatized groups. However, existing theories have focused on narrative exposure, with limited attention to narrative creation. Creating a story involves simulating characters and events and expressing them through language, which may engage unique psychological processes. This research investigates how and why creating stories shapes stigma. In three experiments, participants wrote, imagined, or read a positive story about a stigmatized character. Study 1 showed that narrative creation, especially writing, increased psychological ownership, which predicted greater transportation and lower stigma. Study 2 replicated these findings using a different stigmatized group. Study 3 showed that psychological ownership continued to explain the effects of narrative creation above and beyond perceived agency. These findings extend theories of narrative persuasion by considering the effects of story creation on intergroup attitudes and introducing psychological ownership as a novel mechanism linking creation to narrative processing and outcomes.